New historical drama is so brutal that audiences are walking out
Movies And TV

New historical drama is so brutal that audiences are walking out

A new historical drama set to be released in cinemas is reportedly so violent and brutal that people who have seen it have been walking out of screenings.

The Nightingale had its premiere in Australia last night, but guests at the screening began walking out after just 20 minutes.

The film is set in the 18th century and tells the story of 21-year-old Irish convict Clare, who travels through the Tasmanian bush seeking revenge against the British officer and his soldiers who committed atrocities against her family.

It was screened as part of the Sydney Film Festival to a sold-out audience of more than 1,000 people.

In setting up the tale of revenge, the first section of the film confronts the audience with long, drawn-out scenes of the protagonist being raped by several men over several scenes.


By the third rape scene in the first 20 minutes, some of those watching on in horror in the cinema had enough ad walked out.

According to, there was a lull in the on-screen horror and one woman could be heard screaming: "She’s already been raped, we don’t need to see it again."

More people walked out throughout the film, which has several scenes horrific violence towards babies, children and indigenous people, with close-up shots of faces being mashed up, brutal stabbings and even more rapes.


And audience members were not the only people to be horrified, many critics have also slammed the film for its 'gratuitous' violence.

New York Post critic Johnny Oleksinski wrote: "Vacuum-packing a non-stop supply of rapes, deaths and beatings into more than two hours is needlessly punishing and comes at the expense of character and story.


FilmEra critic Chris Shortt called The Nightingale a 'gruelling and grossly offensive misfire'.

"(Director) Kent subjects us to a disturbing frequency of rape scenes to the extent that it soon stops feeling like a jolt of brutal honesty and quickly becomes indulgent," he wrote.

"If we weren’t aware of the historical atrocities committed by British soldiers across the colonies already, we certainly are by the fourth rape scene. What, then, of the fifth or the sixth?"


The Nightingale was directed by Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), who has said she wasn't sure how audiences would react to the film and that she found it very difficult to make.

During Q&A after the screening, she said she understands why people have felt so affected, but that she felt like she needed to include scenes of such horror so as not to soften the brutality of that period in history.

She said filming the scenes was 'heartbreaking', and she cried through the process.